Dumbledore (but more Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177433

> va32h here:
> 
> Well then Dumbledore is an idiot.  Because Harry hasn't been afraid 
> of death since...EVER!  In the very first book, when he is a mere 11 
> year old, he rushed off to save the Philosopher's Stone because he 
> knew even then that dying was better than living under the influence 
> of evil. 
> 
> And every single year since then Harry has willingly risked death to 
> fight the good fight. 

Pippin:

It's not a question of better to die fighting than live under the influence 
of evil, or of fleeing to death in order to escape pain.  Harry had yet to do 
what Lily did -- step forward and say, "Take me instead." It's not something
he would have done all along. As he says in PoA, "Why would I
want to go looking for someone who wants to kill me?" (quoting
from memory.) 

I don't know how different that is in RL from taking the risk of dying
in a fight because I've never done either. But it's something that
storytellers have always treated as different. It's like Spock going into
the reactor knowing there's no chance he'll survive,  as opposed 
to ducking phaser blasts in battle or rushing off to save Kirk.

  It had to be Harry's own idea, not something he did 
because Dumbledore had asked it of him. But Dumbledore hoped 
very much that Harry would do it. That is why, IMO, he  radiates 
so much happiness when Harry pulls it off. 

> va32h here:
> 
> I hear ya.  But we're in mourning, and unlike in JKR's world, that 
> takes more than a few minutes.  I loved this series, I cherished this 
> series, and its creator turned it into something ugly and repulsive. 

Pippin:
I'm sorry you're so disappointed. It's funny, some of the people I thought
would really like the book are disappointed, and some of those I 
thought would hate it don't.

Me,  I loved the book, and the more it's criticized, the more things
I find in it to love. There's no lack of mourning rituals,  all you have to
do is go back and read them again. We have Fawkes's
lament, Dumbledore's funeral and  Dobby's burial. We don't need to
have them over and over again for the sake of every character, at least I
don't. It'd be like the RoTK movie, which ends when the ring is destroyed
and ends when  Aragorn gets married, and  ends  when Sam gets 
married, and then when Frodo goes over the sea...but wait, there's more! <g>

Clearly the HP books are not meant to be read in a linear fashion.

You get to Snape's death scene and it seems like you're supposed
to think whew, that's him out of the way, only to realize later that
this is exactly what Snape was taking on when he went back to 
Voldemort. He knew it was not likely to end any other way. 
Not too painful, I hope. At least Harry's basilisk bite was not. 

You realize that dammit there's still an enigma: how much of
Snape's ignorance was real and how much was feigned? But no
matter, whether he chose ignorance or feigned it, he still did
what he had chosen to do: give Voldemort only the information 
that Dumbledore wanted him to have. 

There was nothing to stop Snape from switching sides as soon
as Dumbledore was gone, not even the hope of saving Harry
for Lily's sake. There was nothing to stop him telling Voldemort
he had learned that Harry had a soul fragment and mustn't
be killed. Nothing,  except his genuine regret for having
become a DE in the first place. He faced the same temptation
and turned aside. If that ain't redemption, there ain't no
such animal.

Snape gets  his dying wish, he gets the one fully realized 
real-time death scene in the series *and*  he gets the one 
elegy that is both fully knowledgeable and heartfelt. He even 
gets Dumbledore's glory: if  friendship and bravery is what 
makes a wizard great, then one  can say  that Severus 
Snape was the greatest wizard that Harry had  ever, or would 
ever, know. 

You could say of Snape's friendship with Lily  what  
TH White said of Lancelot: he was a false
friend, all the same, no one ever had a better one. 

Pippin